Tag: Players

This post originally ran just over a year ago, when our favorite (NOW MARRIED!) puck bunny conquered roughly half a dozen soon-to-be professional hockey players. Sadly, there was no similar venture this year (that we know of…). So, while the sports world slows for a few days as we celebrate Bill Pullman’s famous Independence Day speech and I stock up on coffee, beer and Haribo Gummy Bears for our Flyers free agency running commentary on Friday, let’s relive the beauty and majesty of Princesss Sass, a tradition unlike any other.

Before we delve into the shadowy world of jersey chasing – puck bunnydom, to be specific – let’s rewind to an earlier time.

Back in April, during that series in which the Flyers embarrassed the half-assed hockey team from the western end of the state, we introduced you to (our favorite) partially cloaked Penguins fan: Princesss Sass, as she’s known on the Interrods.

We first came across Ms. Sass when she posted pictures of some signs she brought to the CONSOL Energy Center to harass the Flyers. We then followed her solo travels to Philadelphia for Game 3 and, as recently as last week, featured her in our special puck slut PSA relating to the announcement of the NHL Draft coming to the City of Brotherly Love in 2014. Sass’ appearance in our PSA was to demonstrate the shooting-fish-in-a-barrel nature of the NHL entry draft, an event that sees scores of young, mostly Canadian, teen-something boys flock into a particular city for, up to that point, the biggest weekend of their lives. The weekend when they become men.

We have to give Sass credit. She’s taken our heavy ribbing in stride (even though I once called her a slore), almost reveling in her role as the stereotypical puck slut from Shittsburgh. But now she’s outdone herself. She has given us an exclusive, meticulously detailed account of her weekend at the NHL Draft – complete with pictures and screenshots – where she warmed up about a sixth of the top 60 picks.

…

Before last weekend’s event, which was held in Pittsburgh, Sass tweeted a preview of her outfit for the draft’s first night. For her and other puck bunnies (and I do wish to not be graphic here), the thought of bagging an up-and-comer who might one day drink from Lord Stanley’s Cup (or, less ambitiously, bookend Pierre McGuire along an NHL dasher) makes their underoos drippier than a protagonist during the rain scene in a mid-oughts romance flick.*

You see, hockey players, unlike athletes from the other three major sports, are fairly accessible. For example, if you were a jersey chaser and wanted to fuck LeBron James, you’d likely have to make it through long lines, VIP ropes, possibly a background check, a publicist, some posse and Mike Miller before you ever got near King. Then there’s a good chance you’d have to be taken for a test spin (perhaps simultaneously) by a few members of his inner-circle – sexual gatekeepers, if I may – to see if you were up to the task. With satisfactory performance, you might – might – have a chance to score with LeBron.

Conversely, if you wanted to bump baby makers with, say, Jeff Carter, all you’d have to do is wear a revealing tube top to La Costa this Friday night.

It’s just… easier to get with hockey players.

At the NHL Draft, it’s easiest: puck bunnies want in early and not-even-old-enough-to-shave athletes want their first (or second or third) groupie. It’s a perfect balance, this delicate ecosystem of fuck. And that’s where we begin our story.

[Note: We’ve removed players’ names from the story and texts. But among those included are five first-rounders, four second-rounders, two sons of former NHLers, and one (now) Flyer. All are 18, or younger.]

Because I'm fairly confident the NHL won't begin until mid-December or so (the NHL won't put the Winter Classic in jeopardy), I'm putting the over/under at 15.

Yeah, the NHL needs to conduct business as usual, but is anyone really trying to hear this right now? Especially considering that the chances that a good number of these games won't be played, it's just another thing to infuriate hockey fans… it's working.

Adam Proteau of The Hockey News put it better than I could:

The NHL releasing a national 2012-13 TV schedule is like Van Halen's tour plans: nice in theory, but don't bet on all the dates panning out.

Six players, zero optimism… exactly what every hockey fan wants to hear. The NHL and the Players Association won't meet today after the league tweaked their proposal, but could get together tomorrow.

When I say "tweaked", what I really mean is the league took an intially shitty proposal, and made it a little less shitty. Changing a few words, throwing a few mill back at the players, and trying to set a $58 million cap (down from over $70 million) isn't going to fly.

“We threw a lot of good ideas out there [when we met with MLB in 2006],” Rollins said. “They had some things they were doing with Spike Lee, getting him on board with some short, mini-movie type things, something like that. Obviously, we haven’t seen any of it. Neither have the MLB fans. In short, nothing has come of it.

“You can promote yourself as a player. You can always do that. But that doesn’t help brand the game. The overall agenda was, ‘How do we brand black players in the game with baseball? It’s not an easy thing to do by any means.

“Young black kids today look to the glamour sports, what appear to be glamour sports. Take your helmet off on the sidelines, clown on the touchdowns. In the NBA, you do a dunk, give the Incredible Hulk to the crowd, things of that nature. Those things hit home. In baseball, if you hit a big home run and do anything other than run around the bases, you’re a clown.”

I asked Rollins if Phillies first baseman Ryan Howard and Brewers first baseman Prince Fielderwere the kinds of African-American players that should be the focus of baseball’s efforts.

He had an interesting reply.

“(Justin) Upton is on his way up,” Rollins said. “Football, basketball, they take guys on their way up. They make money off them, promote them before they even make their top dollar.

“Baseball, it’s history and numbers and all that. You’re great once you’re old and out of the game. You’re good when you’re in the game. But everything comes back to, ‘Look at the history, the golden age of baseball.’

“Kids don’t care about that stuff. They weren’t even born. What’s happening now and today? Especially with the way society is, it’s about what’s happening at this very moment. Twitter, Facebook, all that stuff, it’s what’s happening now.”

Never mind the obvious miss at an opportunity to credit The Big Piece, Rollins is right on. Baseball, of all the major sports, does the worst job of promoting its players, both black and white.

Baseball is the most individual of all the sports. In fact – the SABR nerds are going to stroke themselves when they read this – it is probably the one game that could be played in a vacuum, devoid of any and all human interaction. While obviously that’s not the case, and the interaction between players, coaches, and managers is imperative and, sadly, unmeasurable, baseball is based almost entirely on individual skills: a pitcher throwing a ball, a batter hitting it, a fielder catching and throwing it, etc. Those individual moments and players should be showcased much more than they are.

Doubly worse, MLB not only passively fails to promote individual players, but they also actively destroy any non-sanctioned promotion of their players or product.

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Tremendous story by Tim McManus this morning over at Philly Sports Daily. The looming NFL lockout appears to be nothing more than a fight between millionaires and billionaires. But when you consider that many NFL players will play in the league for far less than a decade, sign one lucrative contract (at best), and have no other discernible skill in life, what you're left with is a handful of set-for-life players and a bunch of guys who are going to be broke just a couple of years after they hang it up (78% of them).

It's guys like that who sought assistance from Brandon Graham, who signed a $14 million contract and has a group of trusted advisors:

This makes him attractive to the needy and the greedy seeking some liquid – including his own teammates. By Graham’s count, at least two fellow Eagles have asked him for substantial loans to get them through the lockout.

The most he’s gotten hit up for?

“100K,” said Graham.

“They try not to make it awkward. They’ll come to you like they’re joking, but they’re serious. They’re trying to feel you out, to see what you’ll say.”

Graham always has the same reply: No.

“I’ll be like, ‘What are you going to do with it, other than blow it?’ I don’t want to be beefing with guys on my team because they owe me money,” said Graham.

Besides the obvious chuckle that comes with hearing an NFL player asked a teammate for a loan, situations like this allow us to see just how much of a gap exists between the owners and the players.

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Don’t expect to see any tweets from members of the Villanova basketball team this year.

It looks like Jay Wright put the kibosh on members of his team tweeting this year. Not exactly earth-shattering stuff, but more and more college teams are doing this and Villanova appears to have jumped on board as well. None of the seven players on the team who tweet have done so in a few days, and walk-on Dallas Ouano seemed to confirm that, saying "Goodbye twitter, see you in April."

As someone who went to Villanova and covered their basketball games, Wright doesn’t take kindly to player distractions. During a meeting with students, someone’s phone went off and I recall him saying that he would absolutely lose it if that happened during a team meeting.

The timing is interesting because Deadspin reported that a Villanova baseball player posted a comment on a message board about the proper way to use steroids.

The basketball team hasn’t been without its own scandal this year. In March, rumors (that were never proven) popped up about Corey Fisher and Scottie Reynolds’ girlfriend. And in July, Taylor King left the school for "violating team rules," after playing only one year with the Wildcats. He had a substance abuse problem.